Being Alone VS Feeling Lonely

Monday, October 15, 2018

I feel like it's been quite some time since I last penned my personal thoughts here. So I thought instead of doing another entry for my 가자 Korea Diary series, I should do something different to spice things up a little.

Growing up, I used to think that I was an extrovert - without a doubt. I was always on the go and surrounded by people. Maybe it was the jam packed schedule of an Asian kid living in an Asian country. Time spent in school was insanely long, I was living with my grandparents, I had cousins in the house and I had all sorts of extra activities after school like tuition classes, ballet lessons, music classes and things like that. To make things worse, it was compulsory for us to take part in Saturday activities at school too. As I was spending 6 out of 7 days at school every week, there's hardly any time left to study for more than 10 subjects (yes, you read it right) let alone to wonder whether one's an extrovert or introvert.

When I moved to Melbourne, I was constantly living with friends - be it in a dorm or in an apartment. Life was all about rushing assignments, studying and having fun at home with my flatmates. Again, ain't nobody got the time to ponder on some personality test like this.

♦

Within the past 12 months, I discovered that I actually do like spending time on my own. First taste of it was being alone in South Korea in October 2017. I did hang out with friends but I also spent a significant amount of time alone. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed myself like I never had even when I was alone. It was then I started to question, "Why and how could I enjoy being alone like I never did before?"

This year, I traveled solo again to Hong Kong and moved back to Malaysia and started working from home and living at home alone most of the time...that's when I slowly discovered the answer.

♦

When I was travelling, I tend to tell myself, "you are only here for a specific amount of time, so make sure you enjoy it to the fullest". I was very present. I didn't care about anything else but immersed myself fully into whatever I was doing/seeing and wherever I was at.

Being home alone for an extensive period of time gives me the luxury that most people don't have to listen to my inner thoughts cautiously. Our society puts too much glory on hustling, having tonnes of followers, having more likes and comments, constant text notifications blowing up on the phones...but not enough attention is being given to the importance of mindfulness.WTF these few months of meditation and spiritual seeking journey really did me well! I can't believe I'm typing such deep shit statements on my blog. Damn~

♦

If I'm not mistaken, I think I read this line somewhere "an average human mind has over 60000 thoughts per day". You won't know because this involves the thoughts that are going in your subconscious mind as well. If you had never done something like this - sit down, keep calm, try to figure out what is going through your brain (and those are only conscious thoughts), that would be an overwhelming yet eye-opening experience. Work through the positive thoughts and find ways to expand them while weeding out the negative thoughts.

I see this from a few people who are close to me in life. Whenever they get a moment of peace or a free time slot in their schedule, they are already finding ways to fill it in. I have nothing against a complete extrovert or complete introvert and how one chooses to have fun in life but I am an advocate of being a chameleon in life - adapt to your surroundings for the better good of yourself or the people around you. While I spend a good amount of time being alone, I interact with my friends all day over the phone too everyday.

It's about getting the yin-yang balanced! Yeap, Mulan's my favourite Disney show of all time!

On that note, I strongly recommend to block out some time everyday, sit down in complete silence and deal with the clouds of thoughts that come and go in your mind. I used to think meditation is the biggest time-waster ever but now one day without it, I knew I was going out of alignment. Keeping an eye on my thoughts has grown into a habit just like I wouldn't go a day without brushing my teeth for at least twice. Yes, it's that important because it is yucky if you don't do so.

♦

What I am getting at is that you gotta be your own best friend and learn to have fun being alone. Instead of being in a mud swamp of "I am lonely because I am alone". That's such a negative thing to dwell upon and it's you acting out from a position of lack. Not good energy. I am going to be harsh and cold here and tell you that feeling lonely is a choice.

There is a paragraph like this in The Little Prince:

"Where are the people?" resumed the little prince at last."It's a little lonely in the desert...""It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake.

♦

If you want to fly, you have to learn how to fly - on your own. That's when you can have the freedom of choice to choose who to fly with because you can't pour from an empty cup and waiting for someone else to fill your cup is just like waiting for rain in a drought - god knows when it will come!

Because at the end of the day, the secret recipe of life is to live it with consciousness and mindfulness, the rest is just vanity.

♦

I'll end this random brain dump blog post here. Gonna cook some dinner right now as I am starving.